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March 21, 2010
AY Report: Task Force Members, Office Space Does Not Equal Jobs, NY Times Misattention
Atlantic Yards Report
On Liu's task force, supporters and opponents of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement
Norman Oder takes a closer look at the membership of New York City Comptroller John Liu's Task Force on Public Benefit Agreements.
I'll point out that the task force contains three advocates for the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA): Scott Cantone of Forest City Ratner; Richard Lipsky of the Neighborhood Retail Alliance (and an FCR lobbyist); and Roger Green, the former Assemblyman and head of the DuBois-Bunche Urban Policy Center.
It also contains two clear critics of the agreement: urban planning professor Tom Angotti of Hunter College and Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York.
Beyond that, there are several others likely to be supporters of the AY CBA, such as Kevin Doyle of Local 32BJ. There are also several likely to be critics, such as Julia Vitullo-Martin, late of the Manhattan Institute and now of the Regional Plan Association.
Could that mean, when it comes to any evaluation of the AY CBA, gridlock?
From a New York Observer article headlined The Business of Ground Zero:
This, of course, is not how office towers typically get built. Developers, particularly in a recession, traditionally must have a large private tenant in hand to get anything but a laugh from lenders, and speculative office space very rarely flies on such a large scale.
This has sparked concerns that the office towers could be slow to lease up, potentially languishing for years without enough rent to even cover the mortgage payments. “Just building office buildings doesn’t mean you’re creating jobs,” said Barry Gosin, CEO of brokerage Newmark Knight Frank. “It’s not like the field of dreams. We’ve learned that lesson before.”
(Emphasis added)
Who never got that message? Among others, Sen. Chuck Schumer and columnists Andrea Peyser and Denis Hamill, all of whom concluded that Forest City Ratner's announced plan to build office towers meant 10,000 jobs.
The New York Times pays attention to... the Nets' MC!
Would you believe that, on the cover of the Sports section yesterday, the New York Times ran a feature, headlined Leading the Nets’ Cheers, for Everything but Victories, about the travails of Marco G., the Nets' MC?
...
It's another example of the Times's dubious choices, promoting the Nets while downplaying and avoiding coverage about the naming rights deal and the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by steve at March 21, 2010 9:55 AM